Once, finding myself in ancient China with plenty of cash and a century to kill, I bought a baby elephant and raised her from infant to invalid. I called her Babalaya. She lived for a hundred and thirteen years and we had time to get to know each other quite well. The larky way she tossed her head about. Her funny figure: all that bulk, and no ass (from the rear she looked like a navvy, slumped over the bar in a Dublin pub). Babalaya—only woman I ever cared a damn about. . . . No, that’s not true. I don’t know why I say that. But long-term relationships have always been difficult for me and I’ve tended to steer clear of them. I’ve only been married three or four thousand times—I’m not the kind to keep lists—and I shouldn’t think my kids are even up there in the five figures. I had gay periods, too. I’m sure, though, that you can see the problem. I am used to watching mountains strain into the sky, or deltas forming. When they say that the Atlantic or whatever is sinking by half an inch a century, I notice these things. There I am, shacked up with some little honey. I blink—and she’s a boiler. While I remained stranded in my faultless noon, time seemed to be scribbling all over everybody right in front of my eyes: they would shrink, broaden, unravel. I didn’t mind that much, but the women couldn’t handle it at all. I drove those broads crazy. “We’ve been together for twenty years,” they’d say: “How come I look like shit and you don’t?” Besides, it wasn’t smart to hang around too long in any one place. Twenty years was pushing it. And I did push it, many, many times, on account of the kids. Apart from that I just had flings. You think one-night stands are pretty unsatisfactory? Imagine what I think of them. For me, twenty years is a one-night stand. No, not even. For me, twenty years is a knee-trembler. . . . And there were unpleasant complications. For instance, I once saw a granddaughter of mine coughing and limping her way through the Jerusalem soukh. I recognized her because she recognized me; she let out a harsh yell, pointing a finger which itself bore a ring I’d given her when she was little. And now she was little all over again. I’m sorry to say that I committed incest pretty regularly in the very early days. There was no way around incest, back then. It wasn’t just me: everyone was into it. A million times I have been bereaved, and then another million. What pain I have known, what megatons of pain. I miss them all—how I miss them. I miss my Babalaya. But you’ll understand that relationships of every kind are bound to be fairly strained (there will be tensions) when one party is mortal and the other is not.
The only celebrity I ever knew at all well was Ben Jonson, in London at that time, after my return from Italy. Ben and I were drinking buddies. He was boisterous in his cups, and soppy too, sometimes; and of course he was very blue about the whole Shakespeare thing. Ben used to sit through that guy’s stuff in tears. I saw Shakespeare once or twice, in the street. We never met, but our eyes did. I always had the feeling that he and I might have hit it off. I thought the world of Shakespeare. And I bet I could have given him some good material.
Soon the people will all be gone and I will be alone forever. Even Shakespeare will be gone—or not quite, because his lines will live in this old head of mine. I will have the companionship of memory. I will have the companionship of dreams. I just won’t have any people. It’s true that I had those empty years before the human beings arrived, so I’m used to solitude. But this will be different, with nobody to look forward to at the end of it.
There is no weather now. Days are just a mask of fire— and the night sky I’ve always found a little samey. Before, in the early emptiness, there were pets, there were plants, there were nature rambles. Well, there’s nothing much to ramble in now. I saw what you were doing to the place. What was the matter? Was it too nice for you or something?